


World in My Eyes

by objectlesson



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Bag End, Confessions, Cultural Differences, Discussion of Homophobia, First Time, Kissing, M/M, Repression, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24008602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: A confessional conversation by smoke and twilight.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 69
Kudos: 328





	World in My Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Ive been really enjoying reading Hobbit fan fiction for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that there's such a wide range in how writers choose, or don't choose, to depict homophobia in Middle Earth. I feel like I've seen just about everything depicted, and really appreciate and enjoy stories where homophobia is a non-issue. It's gotten me thinking about my own headcawons, though, and I decided I wanted to write something that explored the possibility of homophobia looking different but being present in both hobbit and dwarf culture. 
> 
> This is not a sad story at all, just a conversation, really, about differences, and a willful decision to meet in the middle and say to hell with it all. It's sexy but there's no actual sex in it so I went with a mature rating, so there's definitely mentions of things and wishes for things but a fade out before sex would occur. I could be persuaded to write a sequel though if people like this enough. 
> 
> thank you for reading!

Upon returning from Erebor, Bilbo thinks some distance, perhaps, will dampen the flames he feels regarding Thorin Oakenshield, or maybe even whisk them out like a candle being snuffed in a sudden breeze. He suspects that he only misses Thorin so desperately because he’s very far away, but if he were he to _visit_ the Shire and become flesh and blood again, Bilbo would be reminded of all their stark differences and incompatible ways of being and realize, with a very sad smile indeed, why it is best they remain friends and nothing more. (Even though Bilbo wakes up in a cold sweat sometimes, tangled in his sheets and hard against his stomach while the fading fragments of dreams still cling to him like cobwebs, sticky, shameful things. Not memories, but wishes: Thorin’s hands on his hips, Thorin’s beard scraping against his throat, Thorin’s voice snagged in awed longing against the shell of his ear, promising, _I have yearned for you since you left the mountain, Master Burglar. I think of your lips every time I close my eyes.)_

Bilbo is fabricating things, of course. Pulling them from the depths of his subconscious, building hope from want which is always a very foolish thing to do. But if he were to _see_ Thorin, he thinks his mind would stop supplying him with such sordid images. He thinks he could shift back into knowing with certainty that nothing could come from loving a king. 

However, when Thorin _does_ visit Bag End, he dashes this theory to bits. 

It turns out that it’s so very, very easy for Bilbo to share his home with Thorin. They get along _swimmingly._ Perhaps even better than they did during their journey, which makes sense, Bilbo supposes, since there are no warg scouts or orc packs or stone giants or goblins or anything else unsavory driving them from place to place with the threat of peril. There’s _nothing,_ really, besides fine summer weather and the very good tea Thorin brought him from the newly rebuilt shop in Dale. 

And as a result, Bilbo is just as tragically and fruitlessly in love as ever. Perhaps even more so, now that he knows the shape Thorin cuts in his kitchen while he chops shallots, and the soft, quiet way he smiles to Bilbo’s neighbors as not to alarm them, and the exact tone of his laughter when he is the slightest bit drunk on red wine and has nowhere to be and they can finally, finally joke about the last time he was here in the Shire. 

“I should not have been so rude,” Thorin mumbles, holding his hand out so that Bilbo might give him the pipe they are sharing. His lips curve into a self-deprecating smile against the stem of it after he inhales, and wisps of smoke escape the corners of his lips. “And insult you in your own home, make assumptions about your character…I am very lucky you’ve forgiven me.” 

“One hundred times over,” Bilbo says, perhaps too loosely, but. They’re sitting side-by-side on one of his garden benches out back by the sunflower hedge and one of the boards has gone quite splintery so he’s sidled away from it and closer to Thorin, so that the outer planes of their thighs are pressed together, and Thorin hasn’t pulled away yet. The smoke is alive and green-smelling and his head is light with it and Thorin—Thorin hasn’t worn armor since arriving in Bag End which means he looks _softer_ than he does in Bilbo’s memory, more exposed. He rolls the sleeves of his tunics up to his elbows and leaves the top buttons undone over his chest, and so Bilbo’s mind is a forever-mess of _skin_ and silver-black hair and secret whorls of scar tissue and really, he’s not sure he’ll survive much more of this universe where Thorin is _here_ and just as outrageously, unfairly handsome as ever. And so, he says things with too much freedom. With too much hope. “After all, your assumptions about me weren’t _untrue._ At least not at that point, I mean I really had _never_ touched a sword in my life! It was laughable Gandalf thought I’d be a helpful addition to the company at all.” 

Thorin coughs and widens his seat on the bench, so that their legs press together even more snugly. It makes Bilbo’s cheeks flush, and he is grateful the sun is no longer in the sky so that he can conceal himself and his secrets in the lavender shadow of dusk. “Good thing he did,” Thorin murmurs. “Or else we— _I—_ never would have completed the quest alive.” 

He turns to look at Bilbo as he says this, and there is such a grave intensity to the blue of his eyes Bilbo feels like he’s burning up in them, stomach plummeting as if he missed a step. He rips his gaze to his own lap and proceeds to stare at his hands, since he doesn’t know what to say. 

The night fills the silence with cicada song, until Thorin clears his throat and says, “May I ask you a question?” 

“Certainly,” Bilbo answers, fingers trembling as he reaches for and takes the offered pipe, making sure his fingers do not brush Thorin’s in the process. 

Thorin is quiet then, contemplating for a moment as he crosses his arms over his chest and inhales sharply before starting. “Upon having visited your Shire twice now, I’ve noticed it’s customary for Hobbits to marry,” he says thoughtfully without looking at Bilbo, which is a blessing because Bilbo instantly chokes on his mouthful of smoke, coughing until his eyes stream. Thorin does not draw attention to his sputtering state, though, he merely continues as if it’s not happening at all. “I have of course, also noticed that you have not.” The pause is aching until he adds, “Married, I mean.” 

It hangs in the air between them, sitting precariously atop the tendrils of smoke, the question itself still _technically_ unasked. Bilbo wipes his eyes and clears his throat, mouth flattening out before it gathers defensively to one side. “So, you’re wondering why I have no wife?” he finally asks, before sucking in a generous inhalation from the pipe, wishing he was not so very aware of the ghost of Thorin’s lips still lingering upon it, only moments old. 

Thorin hums. “Yes, I suppose I am.” 

Bilbo risks a helpless glance in his direction, only to find him frowning off into the garden, scowling at the bean-sprouts and the newly crimson tomatoes as if they personally wronged him. It is in this moment that Bilbo feels his first spike of trepidation concerning the subject of his bachelorhood, and Thorin’s potential regard for it. He has wondered, of course, how such matters are viewed by dwarves, but always assumed they’d be somehow _less_ taboo to a mannerless society than they would be in the Shire. But of course, that’s not fair. He knows dwarves have manners, they are only _different_ manners than Hobbit manners, and so they necessarily have taboos, too. In fact, he has no reason _at all_ to believe it would be an issue, at the same time he has no reason to believe it _wouldn’t_ be. In spite of all his dwarf friends, their culture and history are still riddled in mystery for Bilbo. 

He takes a shaky breath, heart thundering nervously in his chest. “Well it’s— not to be indelicate, but I haven’t married because—it’s a matter of my preferences, you see,” he begins awkwardly, cringing as soon as the words leave his mouth. Thorin has not moved his leg, still, so Bilbo’s flesh burns where they’re pressed flush, as if the layers of fabric between them could be incinerated with the force of his mortification. Yet, he presses on. Because he trusts Thorin, he supposes. And also because maybe, he _wants_ him to know the truth. “If I were to take a wife, see, it would be to keep up appearances only. At one point this was a concern of mine but…well. Since returning from my journey, I already have quite a reputation and I’m in no rush, really, to remedy it. Hobbits talk and I let them talk, I suppose. They do already.” 

Thorin shifts, and the bench creaks under them. “And what do they talk about?”

It is an invitation to say it outright, and Bilbo simply—he doesn’t know _how._ Not without it seeming unintentionally crass, or suggestive. This conversation isn’t about Thorin, it _shouldn’t_ be about Thorin, but Thorin is the only person Bilbo has _ever_ wanted enough to even entertain fantastical dreams of marrying, so. There is no way to separate him from the truth. “Mostly the fact I disappeared for a year and returned _entirely_ too thin and toting a trunk of gold. My neighbors filed in for weeks with casseroles and nosy questions, and that sort of…drowned out the other bit, really. The bit about me not marrying. Everyone _knows_ why I’m alone, but we all continue to carry on as if they _don’t_ know. You see, it’s all very polite and foolish, how hobbit society works.” He’s quiet for a moment, and then he has to laugh, though it comes out harsh, breathless. “You must find it all rather foolish.” 

“No,” Thorin murmurs, reaching over to take the pipe from Bilbo’s hand, far more careless about them touching so that ever so briefly, their palms slide together and Bilbo’s breath snags in his throat like lace dragged over rough earth. Thorin puffs on the pipe thoughtfully, then blows a billow of smoke out as he says, “I do not find it _all_ foolish. I do not find you foolish. Just the customs themselves.” There is a lingering moment of silence during which Bilbo attempts to regain his bearings. But alas, it is not to be, because Thorin ducks his gaze and asks, “Were you to pursue the sort of relationship you prefer, would it cause quite a scandal here in Hobbiton?” 

Bilbo laughs nervously, wondering how on earth his blissful week hosting the King of Erebor has turned into a gentle interrogation of the potential for _scandal._ “Oh yes,” he admits, wringing his hands. “I believe my cousin Lobelia Sackville Baggins would be positively _thrilled_ at the news. Then, upon realizing I have just as much a right to property as I ever did, she’d seethe about it instead, and fail to gossip about _anything_ else for months…perhaps even years. The rest would all be pleased to have their suspicions confirmed. Pretend it made no difference to my face, while tittering about it behind my back at the marketplace.” 

Thorin nods stoically, and does not say anything for so long, Bilbo is forced to expel the breath he hardly realized he was holding. _Please,_ he thinks, clutching a nervous, sweat-damp hand in the leg of his trousers as he finally pulls away from Thorin. _Please, do not let this change anything between us. Or, if it must change, let it change for the better. Let me be yours. Let us create a scandal._

Again, it occurs to him he has no idea how dwarves regard his particular affliction. Hardly any of the company members were married, and he perhaps just wrongly assumed it was because there was less emphasis on coupling and nuclear family in dwarven custom than that of hobbits. They were a displaced people, after all. The entire concept of _home_ meant something different. Anxiety swirls in his throat, his voice coming out high and reedy as he manages to ask, “I—is marriage and courtship less customary in your culture? Gloin was the only member of the company who spoke of a wife, if I recall.” 

Thorin flinches, as if startled out of a reverie. “Aye. Amid the thirteen of us, he and Bombur were the only married dwarves. It is not traditional, though, as much as it’s the product of circumstance…When our people dispersed it took a toll on the population. Many of our women died in childbirth without proper medical facilities. ” He is quiet for a moment, something troubling his face as Bilbo studies the lines of it, tracing the handsome profile by the light of the almost entirely set sun. He can sense more is coming, so he waits. When Thorin eventually continues, his voice is very soft, distant like waves upon a far away shore. “However, I am lucky my sister Dis had healthy sons. For, given my _own_ preferences, I would have never provided an heir to the throne.” 

Oh. _Oh._ Bilbo scrambles to understand the confession in context, to discern if it _means_ anything beyond Thorin simply implying they share something. After all, having similar desires does not mean those desires are _directed_ at one another. And even if, by some wild stroke of luck they _were,_ the fact they are both men is one of many hurdles. There’s the distance, the cultural barriers, the fact Thorin is a king, and Bilbo is not. Plus, to Bilbo’s knowledge, there has never _been_ a hobbit who married outside their species. It is simply unheard of. And then, even _without_ all that…Thorin is unattainably grand and has always been. The act of establishing any sameness between them is thrilling, and terrifying, but it cannot inspire _hope._ Only bewilderment. Just when Bilbo is considering how he might frame a follow-up question about providing heirs, Thorin rubs insistently at the carving in the bowl of the pipe with his thumb and grinds out, “And what…what of love?” 

“What of it?!” Bilbo asks, thrown. 

Thorin looks at him then, gaze unreadably dark, mouth a flat line lost to the shadow of his beard in the ever-blackening twilight. “Have you ever been in love, Master Baggins?” he asks gently. 

Bilbo laughs again, although this time it comes out more of a frantic, hysterical bark. Because of course…of course he has. He’s been in love for well over a year, now. He never suspected such a thing could happen to him and Thorin seems to inspire devotion _wherever_ he goes so that, alongside the knowledge it could never go anywhere practical, allowed Bilbo’s feelings to grow and fester, bubbling over like an overzealous sourdough starter and now, the kitchen is coated in frothy dough. His love is everywhere, staining every surface and too alive to manage and meanwhile, Thorin is sitting in his garden and they are discussing their _preferences_. The whole circumstance is so astoundingly surreal, Bilbo ends up admitting the truth. “Yes, I have,” he confesses, shaking his head, staring at the weeds pushing up from the soil between his feet. “Rather unfortunately.” 

“Hmm,” Thorin murmurs, without looking away from the night as it sprawls around them. “Tell me about him.” 

The punch of feeling comes in two waves. At first it is relief: Bilbo realizing that even in spite of the seeming frankness of their discussion, he’s still harbored a deep-buried fear that he’s misunderstood it all, and that they’re _actually_ talking about something different, and Thorin would hate him if he knew the truth. But the comfort is brief, because shortly after the swell of relief comes panic for cannot _describe_ Thorin to Thorin without revealing himself. 

So, he sits there for a moment, worrying a seam between his fingers until he blurts, “He—well. He is…he’s rather astounding, actually. I suspect everyone who comes to know him falls in love with him at least a little bit, which was why my own feelings rather—snuck up on me, I suppose. One day I was one of the many who respected and admired him and then, all I could think about was. Well. I will not trouble you with I think about,” Bilbo mutters, flushing so deeply he nearly feels sick with it. “I was certainly not planning on feeling the way I feel, it is a rather inconvenient thing, you see,” he finishes with. 

“I see,” Thorin answers, setting the pipe down on the arm of the bench, and folding his fingers together neatly. Bilbo tries not to look at them too closely, because Thorin’s fingers always result in further bouts of ineloquence on his part, and he knows he will be expected to speak further on this matter, regardless of how uncomfortable it is. “Because of hobbit customs?” Thorin asks. 

“Well. Yes,” Bilbo says, chewing the inside of his cheek before awkwardly adding, “And other things.”

Thorin does not press the topic further, or ask for clarification on those other things, which is both a relief and a disappointment. Instead he leaves Bilbo to eye him shiftily, to study him. The way his eyes are lost and thoughtful, dark even though they are the lightest, loveliest shade of blue. _He is achingly handsome, and I cannot stop looking at him even when it hurts,_ Bilbo imagines saying. _I love his strong blacksmith’s hands, and imagine the callous of them scraping my skin. I love his voice, and the way he says my name. I’d sink my hands into his hair and undo his braids so that I might see him in his rawest, purest form, like unhewn stone, like untilled soil. I’d spread my palm over the thunder of his heart while I kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him until our lips were raw and I could see nothing but stars. I would live in a mountain for him, or I would forsake my family’s approval to have him here with me. I would do anything, Thorin Oakenshield. To call you mine._

The night settles over them, suddenly cold now that the last warmth of the sun has been chased away by darkness. Bilbo shivers, and Thorin’s breath makes plumes of steam as he opens his mouth to say, “He is a very lucky hobbit to have won your affections, Master Baggins.” 

It rings in Bilbo’s ears before it’s drowned out by the roar of his own blood. Then Thorin is standing, he’s turning away to cut a path back to the house and that simply _cannot_ happen so, Bilbo says, “He’s not!” as he stands himself, and reaches out lightning quick to grab Thorin’s wrist. He shocks himself with the motion, stands mired there with his mouth hanging open as Thorin turns to round on him. There, they regard each other in the dark. “Tell me,” Bilbo asks, voice far more shrill than he’d like it to be. “Have _you_ ever been in love?” 

And Thorin softens, then. His arm bends and he steps in, one boot on either side of Bilbo’s feet, which are drawn together, toes gripping the grass anxiously. “Yes, I have. Once,” Thorin murmurs, so close Bilbo can feel the warmth of him, smell the smoke on his breath, the leather of his vest. Time seems to stop as Thorin carefully frees his hand from Bilbo’s grip only to lay it questioningly upon the outside of his arm before thumbing into the ditch with prudent tenderness. 

“And what was he like?” Bilbo breathes. 

Thorin wets his lips with his tongue and shakes his head, stepping closer as his stricken blue gaze shifts over Bilbo’s face and back again, lingering in places as if it has wandered astray and gotten lost. The corner of his mouth. The hollow beneath his collar bone. The point of his ear. “Beautiful,” Thorin starts with, and it strikes Bilbo like a blow, making his eyes drift shut momentarily, his heart pound so loud he’s certain Thorin can hear it. It must be a good thing, though, because when he opens them again, Thorin is smiling at him softly, and he lets his palm rub up the outside of Bilbo’s arm from his neck to the hinge of his jaw. “And very short,” he adds in a whisper. 

“And you don’t—you don’t mind that about him, I suppose,” Bilbo asks, just in case. Because he wants to know for certain Thorin is referring to him. Because the world is swimming around him, and nothing feels real, and he can pursue this wish as he does in his dreams, when he is barely awake and still clinging to the memory of Thorin touching him exactly as he is now.

Thorin shakes his head. “No. I love everything about him,” he admits, bringing his other hand up to mirror the first, so that he’s cupping Bilbo’s face between his broad, warm palms. They smell of the herbs he helps chop some hours ago for dinner, the ghosts of rosemary, and tarragon, and sage, and under all of that, the smoke of tobacco. Bilbo’s breath catches. “If he were mine, I’d treasure him so. I’d forfeit my crown so I could spend all my remaining days in his arms.” 

“Thorin, you—you must not—” Bilbo murmurs, eyes prickling wetly, throat thick. 

Thorin shakes his head to silence him. “He is always worried, and I often think about smoothing the lines in his brow,” he says, raising one hand to do it, thumbing gently at the furrow between Bilbo’s eyes. And _oh—_ it’s so much he’s dizzy. He is trembling all over, holding onto Thorin so tightly, making fists in his crude linen tunic like he may float away if he lets go. “He is the strongest person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing,” Thorin continues, voice low, sincere. “And the the bravest, even in the face of great danger. He is also impossibly loyal, even when those he is loyal to do not deserve such devotion.” 

“Hush,” Bilbo interjects, stomach in knots, fingers clenched so tightly his grip feels charged, electric. “They are deserving of that, and much more.”

Then Thorin is pulling him so close, pressing their brows together, gaze intensifying, pupils wide and shot and gaze half-lidded as he parts his lips, and exhales. “He has a very distracting mouth,” he says raggedly.

“Oh?” Bilbo gasps, positively _reeling,_ drunk on the perfect, fever-hot taste of Thorin’s breath. “Does he?” Thorin nods. “Do you think of kissing it?” Bilbo asks then, insides twisting in disbelieving anticipation. 

Thorin groans brokenly, and Bilbo sucks it in. “I think of doing a great many things to it,” he confesses then, voice in tatters. “Kissing is one of them. Perhaps the only one I can do here, in your garden, in the middle of the Shire where people will talk.” And then, the fabric of the universe collapses and Thorin Oakenshield kisses him, very gently at first before something fractures and it is suddenly wet, and rough, and hungry. Thorin’s thumbs brace at the corners of Bilbo’s mouth as he opens up to be licked into, and even _that_ is not enough so their bodies press flush, shifting together in the night, graceless and off balance and desperate. Thorin pulls back to suck in a messy gasp, and as they part Bilbo looks around helplessly, to make sure they’re not in a dream.

“Are we going to cause a terrible scandal if we continue out here?” Thorin gasps out against Bilbo’s neck, which he kisses before he licks, beard so bristly it makes Bilbo shiver and cry out.

“Oh, I've already caused a great scandal by hosting dwarfs in Hobbiton before running off to have adventures. I suppose kissing the King of Erebor in my garden is really only to be expected, now, given my reputation.” 

Thorin peels away to look down at him, gaze wild and reverent and nearly _overflowing_ with the promise of all that is to come. As if that is not enough, he untucks Bilbo’s shirt with one hand to rub up underneath it, thumbing into the divots between his rips, licking up his breathless whimper. “And what if I would like to kiss you in your bed?” he asks, digging in blunt nails. 

“Agreeable,” Bilbo murmurs. “For I would like to kiss you everywhere.” 

and so, they bid the garden farewell. 


End file.
